Woodland Park Wildflowers and Other Stuff

While walking through Woodland Park yesterday, the following native wildflowers were observed (some have already bloomed and the pictures are from the Internet, not Woodland Park): jack-in-the-pulpit, wild geraniums, trout lily, Solomon's seal, Solomon's plume, Columbine, white trillium, rue-anemone, white and red baneberry, bloodroot, toothwort, blue cohosh, and mayapple.

Solomon's plume is present in impressive numbers, wild geranium and jack-in-the-pulpit are also quite numerous. You can see rue-anemone especially right along Monona Drive at the south end of the park (bloom is off now).

These plants are "coming back" because the repeated prescribed burns, spraying and pulling of garlic mustard and the burning of the buckthorn have really opened up a lot of areas. The invasive competitors are knocked back and the sunlight is getting through so that these wildflowers have a chance to compete.

Progress report. We've had a lot of success attacking the garlic mustard and we really whomped the second-year plants, but there is still a lot first-year growth that is more obvious by this time of year. Fire has also killed a lot of smaller buckthorns, but one of the next major tasks will be to attack the buckthorn in a systematic way.

The immediate next task is to stop mowing the northwest corner and see what comes up. In all likelihood, none of what comes up will be much good and we will need to spray that area. It's going to look ugly for a couple years, but eventually we can end up with a beautiful oak savanna.

Other garlic mustard update. As part of the Parks Volunteer Day organized by Jessica Ace and Lisa jo VonAllmen, a major bite was taken out of the garlic mustard in our other city parks. Peter Sobol and his family (and others?) pulled GM from a number of parks, including Winnequah and Maywood. Peter also contacted the Lake Monona Sailing Club and they pulled garlic mustard from Stone Bridge Park as part of their stewardship.

I would also like to thank the volunteers who came out for the garlic mustard pulls at Woodland Park: Mary O'Connor, Peter McKeever, Heather Gates, Molly Crossen, Karen Turino, and Pat Howell.